Name: America is In the Heart
ISBN: 9780295952895

Carlos Bulosan

First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West.

A Personal History

America is In the Heart

reneé amelia 

This is my first book describing the horror and struggles of filipino life and migration in the 1930s+ and it was absolutely devastating. I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the provinces, despite the daily struggles of survival, and it tore me apart reading about life in america. In tears over the fact that Bulosan died at 30 from malnutrition and bronchopneumonia before he managed to receive the appreciation he deserves.

A 1946 Filipino American social classic about the United States in the 1930s from the perspective of a Filipino migrant laborer who endures racial violence and struggles with the paradox of the American dream, with a foreword by novelist Elaine Castillo Poet, essayist, novelist, fiction writer and labor organizer, Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956) wrote one of the most influential working class literary classics about the U.S. pre-World War II, a period and setting similar to that of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. Bulosan's semi-autobiographical novel America is in the Heart begins with the narrator's rural childhood in the Philippines and the struggles of land-poor peasant families affected by US imperialism after the Spanish American War of the late 1890s. Carlos's experiences with other Filipino migrant laborers, who endured intense racial abuse in the fields, orchards, towns, cities and canneries of California and the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s, reexamine the ideals of the American dream. Bulosan was one of the most important 20th century social critics with his deeply moving account of what it was like to be criminalized in the U.S. as a Filipino migrant drawn to the ideals of what America symbolized and committed to social justice for all marginalized groups. Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month with these three Penguin Classics: America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan (9780143134039) East Goes West by Younghill Kang (9780143134305) The Hanging on Union Square by H. T. Tsiang (9780143134022)

America Is in the Heart

Sara

[read for Asian American Literature class]

y’all thought A Little Life was bad??? This is so much harder to read and it’s REAL. I’m blown away. So many thoughts about the portrayal of women. Feels weird to rate but giving it a 4 for the sake of analysis.

Erika Schmitz

This was quite difficult for me to get through; by no fault of the author, it was so far removed from my own world that most of the time I forgot that it was an autobiography while I was reading it because it seemed so otherworldly. I wouldn't reread it by any means, but it did open my eyes to the Filipino-American experience so for that I am glad I read it.

Miguel

Angie Lee

akira

Kevin Spachuk

First published in 1943, this classic memoir by well-known Filipino poet Carlos Bulosan describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West.

America is In the Heart A Personal History

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